NEW YORK — Brooklyn-born country performer Jack Grace recalls opening for the late Jerry Lee Lewis in 2007 — and the premature conclusion of their time together.
“Jerry Lee Lewis and I had the same manager at the time and that was the first show we did at B.B. King’s together,” Grace told the Daily News. “The first time Jerry Lee Lewis heard me, he turned to our manager and said, ‘He sounds like that (Johnny) Cash kid, but good.’”
Grace, a lifelong Lewis fan, was thrilled. It was at that show he asked Lewis to sign his guitar, which the “Great Balls of Fire” singer declined to autograph, telling him “I only sign pianos, son.”
According to Grace, Lewis made that comment — which he repeated backstage after the concert — in good humor. Lewis, he said, came from a background of piano-driven rock 'n' roll that marked the late 1950s, when guitar-rock was where the genre was headed. Fair enough.
But that story got picked up by local media, where one headline made it sound as though Lewis was being arrogant.
Grace was stunned when he was dropped by their mutual manager and never opened for the man whose music inspired him again.
It was a tough blow for the New York crooner, whose father had come to see his boy open for The Killer. Grace said he’d even been told some of Lewis’ people were “inquiring” about having him dealt with physically over the misunderstanding.
Lucky for Grace, that didn’t come to fruition.
“You gotta realize people like Jerry Lee Lewis (and) a lot of country legends understandably have a chip on their shoulder about New York City,” he said. “They’re not wrong that there’s a lot of New York City people that say disparaging things about what they consider ‘hillbillies.’ We’ve all heard it.”
Lewis died in his Desoto County, Mississippi, home Friday, according to his publicist. He was 87. The Louisiana native leaves behind his seventh wife, Judith, whom he married in 2012, and four children.
Now living in Peekskill, Grace recalls Lewis giving it all he had 15 years ago when the two of them played at B.B. King’s now defunct West 42nd Street club.
“I was choked up,” Grace said. “He was on fire that night. He played an amazing show. He delivered.”
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